National Festival of Angolan Culture

The traditional arts of Angola have played an important part in cultural rituals marking such passages as birth or death, childhood to adulthood, and the harvest and hunting seasons. In producing masks and other items from bronze, ivory, wood, malachite, or ceramics, each ethnolinguistic group has distinct styles.

The mixture of Portuguese and African culture has made urban Angola, especially the Luanda region, more like a Latin American than an African country. Its nightclubs, restaurants, and annual Carnival might seem at home in Brazil had not war and security measures made this sort of social life difficult.

Colours, party, a national day off and a Brazilian-style event. Carnival lives up to its reputation as the big holiday of Angola.